Learning of Peaches
by LadyJoji
Summary: A long prologue to a story I was thinking about. The tale of a governess who goes to the Arendelle castle. Metaphors ensue. Complete.


Dearest fandom readers,

This is the first time I've ever really written for others (I'm sure there are many, many mistakes), so bear with me, please. I wanted to take a crack at making the Elsanna tag on Tumblr cry, and I wanted to explore the Elsa character a bit. There are homosexual themes, so if you don't like the gay, don't stay! I had fun writing each one of the 20+ pages of it and would like to continue the story, but I suppose that all depends on the response. Otherwise, I'm content with leaving it as a standalone story.

It is pretty long, although it's weird how small it seems now; so go ahead and make some hot chocolate first- then sit back, relax, and (hopefully) enjoy. Thanks for reading.

Love,  
LadyJoji

P.S. Happy New Year. Ya'll are beautifuller than gems and junk.

**I also posted this story at Archive Of Our Own, under the same title/username.

**I do not own Frozen. Disney owns Frozen.

* * *

_We'll lock the gates._

The king beamed. "Wonderful! The new nanny, I presume?" He rose from his chair and swiftly crossed the rose-colored carpet of his office to formally greet the guest standing at the doorway.

_We'll reduce the staff._

"Yes, sir." The woman allowed for her hand to be taken and cradled, immediately acquiring a fondness towards the King of Arendelle for being so gentle in his regard. She returned the smile in full as her employer seemed to be enormously pleased with her attendance.

_We'll limit her contact with people, and keep her powers hidden from everyone._

"It's a relief to see you've made it in time, coming from so far north," the king said with a pent-up sigh. "You see... my wife and I must leave the country for a month to attend some diplomatic duties. I apologize for sending for you on such short notice, but my..."

_Including Anna._

"My daughter," he finished, straightening up. "She is still so young. I couldn't bare to leave her for so long without a proper caretaker." The king's face hardened as his gloved hands arranged to clasp against the small of his back. "Her mother and I would normally be here to satiate her... energy, but I fear she may act out if she is not constantly supervised while we're gone."

"I have heard about your shortage of help in the castle." The woman reached up to remove her fur-lined winter hat as she spoke, and from its contents her pale hair dropped. Upon watching the hat's decent, the king rounded to her backside and aided in the removal of her similarly accented fur coat, both of which he couldn't help but draw the musty smell from the material, as if the animals were caught and skinned only a day before.

The tanned slopes of the woman's shoulders slipped out from one end, then the other, and afterwards he gathered the coat in his arms for a precise and respectful fold.

"Ah, yes..." the king confirmed carefully. He draped the coat over his arm and politely offered his hand for the hat before a servant arrived to relieve them of the articles of clothing. She thanked them both while simultaneously making a note of the king's expression, one feigning a professional calmness to the subject. "Personal matters," he added with a mindful smile after the initial beat, catching her sharp, emerald eyes looking at him with the consistency of a cat.

"Oh, your highness- forgive me," she suddenly bowed, embarrassed. "It is not my place to question how one rules their own estate. Of course it is a great honor to serve you, sir. Arendelle has been nothing but kind to my country."

The king chuckled, holding his palm upwards as a gesture of peace. "Please, it is all right. I am just so thankful that you accepted this position." His outstretched arm guided the woman further into the confines of his work space. "The temperature change alone must be daunting."

"Indeed," the woman nodded as she was led. From the wide windows she could see Arendelle's summer blossoming bright and heavenly amongst its green hills and dipping valleys, the golden sun licking the surface of the glass to make a blinding stain against her eyes, to which she squinted in response and turned away. "While your summers are beautiful, I have always been much more of a snow person."

The king smiled apologetically once again. "I am very sorry to ask you to stay here for a month, but you were highly recommended to me." He reached for a stack of papers on his desk and thumbed through them for a particular one, plucking it from the pack once it was found. "I will admit, I am shocked that someone could be so good with children and yet have none of their own."

The woman graced her bare, tanned fingertips upon the windowsill in a moment of well-behaved idling, seemingly attempting to peer under the glare of the sun at the foreign inflorescence. "Personal matters," the woman smirked, which made the king lift his head and regard her statement with a small, understanding laugh.

"You are an incredible woman," he remarked, laying the piece of paper out on his desk next to a small container of ink. The woman walked towards him with a smile that pinched the ends of her almond-shaped eyes and she gently accepted the feather pen from his fingers. "I hope the prospect of never sitting down again excites you, because my Anna will have you running screaming if you're not careful."

"And... what of the other one?" she asked. "If I recall correctly, you have an older daughter who is quite famous for her mystery."

The king tensed. "Elsa... She keeps to her room, mostly. I must ask that you do not worry yourself much with her." The king's hand raised to trace the outline of his chin with his thumb and middle fingers. "She likes her privacy. I have a special selection of maids who tend to her when she wishes, but otherwise you needn't fret."

The woman didn't say a word, but she finished signing her name to the document and fed the pen to the awaiting mouth of the ink vial.

"Perfect!" he stated happily. "I'll have your things brought to your room and show you around the estate. Welcome to Arendelle, Miss Elizabeth. And my home."

* * *

Arendelle, a small yet humble city surrounded by valuable lands and bleating livestock, has its borders nestled proudly against the sea, making it a very profitable hub for trade between faraway countries and an even more profitable resting spot for many ships that wander by, providing a handsome boost to local businesses. All of these things put on a respectable face for Arendelle, and thus it is considered a highly sought after trade partner in the eyes of political influences. Alliances are deathly important in the business of importing and exporting goods, and countries are kept well-groomed for each other as appearances (as well as reputation) have, and always will be, a deciding factor of the well-being of their economies. And so, if a King of one of the most prominent economic figures in the northern hemisphere sends for a governess from a small country with not nearly as much trading power, it would be, for a lack of better terms, devastating to said country's reputation to decline such an appeal.

She arrived by ship, as many others do, and her first impression of Arendelle was that of great stimulation. Although after being entertained by nothing but the ocean for three days time, any land no matter how rugged or unpleasant could be heaven's doorstep to a seasick passenger. Her second impression of Arendelle was green. Undoubtedly there were reds and yellows and browns to mingle with as well, but a widespread of green all the same. The colors tantalized the foreign woman's stomach long enough for her to pay the docks man his coin and then promptly ask him the whereabouts of the nearest restroom.

Her third impression proved unfathomable. The city was alive, that much was true; merchants paraded around with their wooden carts and children took advantage of the vacant alleyways for games of hide-and-seek, but while the summer was charging ahead in full force with the sun laughing upon the city and its warm, vigorous life, there was a cold piece somewhere in the bosom- a heart, perhaps, that had frozen and fallen away in secret.

Elizabeth reprimanded herself for refusing to part with her fur coat as the heat it sheathed was the only explanation for her nonsensical thoughts. She did miss home very much though, and it was only wishful thinking that suddenly brought about a chill in the summer air.

* * *

He and the queen were to leave first thing in the morning, he explained. The girls were aware of the new governess in the estate, however, Anna was the only one the king would introduce in person. Elsa is much too shy, he had said. She would never come out of her room, and Elizabeth was to expect to never see her during her stay.

As a young girl of ten, there wasn't much to her physically at all- save for the two bulging blue eyes that projected an intense curiosity as she stared up at Elizabeth with a certain kind of expectancy, as if she was just waiting for the woman to do or say something specific before pouncing. Elizabeth remained calm and still in the unyielding gaze of the little hunter as the girl hid behind her father's towering figure.

"Darling, it's alright..." the king reassured. He perched his massive hand on the crown of the girl's head. "Come say hello to your new governess. She'll be staying here for a little while."

The girl didn't look frightened, on the contrary, she looked merely perplexed at being given a chance to stand before a stranger long enough to compose a sentence. Elizabeth could easily recognize the fear or anxiety in a child if that were the case, but this was not one of those instances. The little girl gripped the front of her dress, just over the left side of her chest, while the rest of her body slowly peeled away from the closeness of her father. Elizabeth smiled for encouragement, as did the king.

She opened her tiny mouth with all of the greatest intentions in the world to speak, Elizabeth was sure, had a rather large cloud of gas not erupted from beyond the little girl's teeth and wafted in the silence between the king and herself. The king made a pained groan, but stifled it quickly.

"Oh, Anna..." he said, bringing his hand to pinch in between his eyes. The little girl was too shocked by the sheer magnitude of her own bodily function to take further action, mustering a deep-seated blush that painted across her freckles like an indoor aurora borealis. How unladylike the governess must think of her- the young girl's mind was hurling- how inappropriate and unseemly for a princess to engage in such tasteless behavior. And now she stood awkwardly between them like an unkept animal awaiting the whip, the desire to speak and meet with someone new momentarily overtook her senses and threw her into a swivet. Her presence was ruined, her chance to impress dismantled in mere seconds. Tears seethed in a crest under the girl's eyes and her face grew hot.

It was then the governess wholeheartedly laughed.

Elizabeth knelt down and gently grasped the little girl's hand. "You know," she said, "in my home country, burping aloud is a sign of good health. It is your body's way of roaring, to tell you it has eaten well. Don't be ashamed. It means you are strong."

Anna's tears held their place as she looked up to the woman, an inch of a smile appearing for every inch of sadness lost. "Like... a lion?"

"Hmm..." Elizabeth thought upwards, then smiled. "More like a lioness."

"But lions are bigger," Anna replied and threw her arms up into strongman curls. "And tougher!"

"Now, that's the funny thing, isn't it?" Elizabeth said. "I'll bet you didn't know that female lions are the ones that hunt for their families. Have you ever seen a lioness protect its cub?" To which Anna shook her head feverishly.

"_Power_," Elizabeth whispered to her. "Power like you couldn't imagine." She glanced up at the king and saw him working her over with his kind, yet inquiring eyes. "Why don't you give your father and I a few minutes to speak, hmm? I promise to tell you later about the time I once wrestled a bear."

The little girl became a bundle of hopeful energy and she could not have whirled around fast enough, taking to a light scamper under her father's legs as it was the quickest route to the other room. Before she disappeared completely, she stopped short of the threshold and waved a little goodbye to Elizabeth, which the governess happily returned. The king stood with his legs still pried to the side.

"You wrestled a bear?" he asked, bewildered, looking more and more like an inebriated stork than a king.

"Once," she repeated nonchalantly. Her hand ceased to wave to Anna and she retrieved it.

"A b- a _bear_?"

"Should I have included that on my resume?" she asked, amused. "I could put it right next to the part about my specialty in treating children with psychological affairs, which I believe to be the true reason of my employment here, sir."

The king quietly affixed himself, physically as well as conduct, as he tugged down on the front of his jacket.

"I caught her talking to paintings," he explained in a volume just a step above the normal whisper.

"Paintings?"

He put his hand on the back of his neck and squeezed. "A Joan of Arc one, specifically. She isn't aware of my overhearing her."

"I see," Elizabeth said with a thoughtful sigh and crossed her arms. "If I may continue to speak so freely, sir- I find it amazing that you were able to uncover that information about me. After all," she added, "most people would find me more suitable in just a governess position." Elizabeth turned to him, starting a slow nod with her eyebrows raised. "And you know that."

The king cleared his throat.

"Looking into a regular doctor would have been too obvious if you wanted to keep this matter as private as possible," she smirked. "So you found a governess with a background in psychology. Lucky."

"You _are_ incredible," the king mused. "But you're wrong about something. I suppose I could have come up with alternative ways to have her examined, especially without frightening her, however..."

"You were afraid no one would take her seriously." Elizabeth looked to him for confirmation and saw he was struck with the realization that he had been completely deciphered. She had experienced the men in her field before. She understood.

"_Please_..." the king softly begged. "I only wish for my family to be safe and well. We have had enough heartaches..." his masculine jaw ticked briefly. "And- and I fear I have become a rather desperate man because of it. Please, will you make sure she is all right?"

"I will take care of your daughter," the woman reassured. "But I cannot promise she'll no longer burp at the dinner table."

* * *

Had it been but three weeks ago Elizabeth would have not believed that a child could go so long without any contact whatsoever, but the eldest princess of Arendelle proved her to be so rightfully wrong. Every so often while attending to Anna's exhausting vehemence (the young girl insisted on hide-and-seek several times a day, and in a castle so large...) she swore she could feel the incessant peeking of a rogue pair of eyes, but they were always summoned away as quickly as they appeared. Perhaps she was tired; perhaps the overwhelming yare of the king and queen's youngest child wrung her shriveled and dry, but the strange whisp of a chill, the snippet of something white and skittish across her peripheral realm permitted the woman to think perhaps not.

One pleasant morning at the dawn of the remaining week, Elizabeth chose to try her luck during some outside supervision.

"Say, Anna..." Elizabeth began. A welcoming breeze dove down and ripped along the vast amounts of emerald acres and forestry, creating an aeolian unrest amongst the grass. "Why does your sister stay in her room all the time?"

Anna continued to spin in circles in her silent play, her arms starting out to the sides before they slowly raised up high, high into the cloudless sky. "I'unno, she jus- whoaa...!" Despite being in a dress, she didn't seem to mind the wind kicking under her. She fell and plopped onto her back, a case of vertigo setting in. Elizabeth stood over her with her hands on her hips and watched the girl's blue eyes birl like lopsided windmills.

"It just happened one day?" Elizabeth finished. Anna nodded.

"We used to play all the time..." the girl continued. Her eyes were beginning to find their place, but when her vision didn't return quickly enough she shut them closed. "I remember us playing a lot in the snow. We liked to build snowmen together."

Elizabeth smiled longingly, raising her eyes to Arendelle's grass-covered hills. "I love the snow. Back home, we don't have summers like this. I used to build snowmen in June and July."

Anna rolled over onto her stomach, disregarding trivial things like grass stains or getting dirt on her clothes. "Do you have any brothers or sisters?" she asked with the toes of her buckled shoes digging into the ground.

Elizabeth took longer than usual to respond which peaked the girl's curiosity. She rounded her head to see the woman staring off deep into the hills of the countryside, the smile all but faded from view.

"I have an older sister," she finally answered. "And a younger brother."

"Did they stop talking to you, too?" Anna asked. The question caught Elizabeth by surprise and she glanced down to look at Anna. The girl was so small, her strawberry-blonde braids lodging pieces of stray grass in the weaves, dirt smudged her dress in spots like a cheetah, and the woman wanted to clean the grime that smeared the young girl's pudgy cheek, but remained decidedly unmoved as it was ultimately a farce that would only repeat itself. And yet despite being so small, this time she seemed to stand so tall when she rose to her feet. Suddenly confident, fearless, she believed in something with unwavering fervor as she moved forward and sent her warm arms to clasp around the woman's waist.

"I bet they think of you," Anna said as she hugged her. Her voice was muffled by the woman's stomach. "I think of Elsa every day. And I know she thinks of me, too..." There was an uncertainty, a break in her speech. Elizabeth rested her hand on the back of the girl's head, just under her white-streaked braid, which prompted the girl to tighten the hug. "Your brother and sister are the same. They have to be."

It was not a matter of the squabbling optimism or pessimism that stirred within her chest, nor was it the possible speculation on Anna's part which could have driven her to carefully chosen words, but it was more that she questioned the verisimilitude of it all after having tried countless times before and failed.

"I'm afraid they may not be," Elizabeth's voice quivered, but she forced it down with a jut of her jaw as if a marble was caught in between her top and bottom rows of teeth. "I don't know Elsa's reasons, but I know why my family shut me out."

Anna's face looked up. "You know why?" she asked, and the tilt in which Elizabeth's heart found itself pooled her emotion onto her sleeve.

"Come here, sweetheart," she said with a sad smile, quickly swiping at both eyes with one hand. "Let me try to explain something to you." She scooped Anna up, angling the girl against her side as she walked back towards a weeping willow tree with a plaid blanket and a basket of fruit underneath. There they sat together in the forgiving shade, Elizabeth's back to the bark with Anna stationed patiently on her lap.

"Now," she began, "how do I do this... Ah!" Elizabeth plucked a fresh fruit from the assorted basket and dangled it by its stem in front of the young girl. "My family has... they have very set ways. To explain this best, let's say, for example- I love peaches."

Anna stared intently at the peach. "Okay, okay. Peaches. I got it," she said enthusiastically.

"Yes?" Elizabeth said, making sure the girl was following. "Good. Now, I love peaches. They're delicious and soft and sweet... and it doesn't hurt anyone that I like peaches- I just like them. Always have. Do you like peaches?"

"I've never had a peach," Anna responded. Elizabeth dropped the fruit onto her lap.

"Here, knock yourself out," she said and fetched another. "Now, let's say that you don't like peaches. So here we are, one of us likes peaches while the other one does not- but the problem is that _you_ don't like that _I_ like peaches."

"Why wouldn't I like that?" Anna questioned and Elizabeth could tell that she was beginning to lose the girl in the example. "Why wouldn't _anyone_ like that?"

She decided to go for a more direct approach: "Because many people, Anna... They are afraid of things they don't understand, so they try to control it." Elizabeth took a breath. "Or destroy it."

Anna's brow furrowed. She balanced the fruit upon her conjoined palms, studying it for its supposed secrets. "So... people are trying to stop you from liking peaches?"

Elizabeth laughed. "Yes," she said. "Exactly that."

Another thorough stare and another long blink made it very clear to the pale-haired woman that Anna was, in fact, entirely missing the point. "Well, that's stupid!" she declared wildly, and Elizabeth was very much inclined to agree with her. She didn't want to delve too much into particulars, anyway. The girl understood enough to criticize the hatred of an individual over peaches, which, for now, was perfect.

And counterfactual to Elizabeth's previous notions, it was not a ghost she saw melting from view at the highest castle window.

* * *

As per ritual, after a short reading from one of Anna's fairy-tale books, Elizabeth tucked the littlest princess of Arendelle into her bed and blew out the nightstand candle, the both of them not as adoringly saccharine as they once were due to similar contemplative attitudes since that morning; and yet, somehow, those moments coalesced into a soundless bond that was both scabrous and comforting in nature. Several times Elizabeth had mentally noted the spacial presence, the physical inches Anna inevitably lacked for being a child of ten years, but for the first time she observed and admired her heart for how it swelled twice any size. The foreign woman decided to spend the rest of her night wandering about the Arendelle castle halls, perhaps in search of a ghost, or something akin to one.

All summers have a breaking point where rain takes over like a grueling chore, but Elizabeth invited the rain clouds with open arms. It reminded her of a time with fireplaces and stories and steaming mugs of hot chocolate that sat smirking in perverse temptation. The woman, inspired by a passing thought, rubbed her chin with purpose.

"I wonder..." she drawled, slowly moving away from the window.

As the woman made her way towards the kitchen area, she took some time to consider life in Anna's buckled shoes. How many times did she gravitate out of bed like a tired phantom and bump through the scattered hallways only to find that, once again, they were empty? How many times did the little girl stand under these ceilings that seemed to blend in with the heavens? Did she throw desperate pleas up into their wells only to hear herself reflecting back? How many times did she stand there in total defeat before recoiling backwards into her seclusion, where she resorted to relying on the paintings on the wall to tell her it will be all right?

Elizabeth opened a cabinet overhead and pulled a white mug from it. After a few seconds of hesitation, she retrieved a second.

There was a crack of lightning big enough to create an aperture in the black clouds that lingered over Arendelle. The vibration of thunder afterwards sent for hundreds of gallons more worth of rain to attack the sleeping city. Elizabeth didn't quite know why she thought this idea would work, but she figured with only a little under a week left of her contract, she had to try something. She set one of the mugs of hot chocolate on the kitchen counter and backed away from it, as if having just sculpted a masterpiece, reaching for her own mug behind her. The woman went to one of the chairs and sat, waiting... waiting for something. She didn't think too far into this plan.

_'What kind of a person lures a child out with chocolate?'_ she thought to herself. _'You work with children for a living and this is the best you could come up with?'_ She gave herself a shrug and accepted a sip of her hot drink. Too hot- much too hot, in fact, because as soon as the liquid touched her tongue she flinched with a sharp breath and let the afflicted skin hang from her mouth. She happened to look over in her agony and held still as another young, pale girl in a deep blue dress with starch white hair balked at her from the entrance of the hallway. Neither one of them gave action to their bodies as they gawked at each other, finding that they were both just as shocked to see the other in the same vicinity at conjoined times.

A threatening clash of thunder split between them and the white-haired girl bolted down the hall in clear, unmistakeable fear.

"Waith!" Elizabeth called after her, her tongue still sore as she scrambled to set her mug down so she could take off after the girl, but not before picking up the second mug of hot chocolate along the way. The trail of trepidation led her to one very familiar hallway where she was first introduced by the king, being heavily warned to steer clear of this area as to not disturb his eldest daughter. She tucked that piece of information away when she made the decision to approach the princess' bedroom door, feeling a much darker and colder impression than usual.

"Princess Elsa?" Elizabeth called carefully. She balanced the mug on its plate while she idly pressed her hand to the door. It retracted almost immediately after touching a strange cold from through the aged wood. There was no answer from the other side.

"It must be cold in there," she called again gently. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you." No answer. "I will leave the hot chocolate out here for you, okay? I won't bother you."

Elizabeth didn't want to pursue any further, so she began a bend to honor her word, but then a sudden onslaught of thunder clashed louder than ever before, rumbling their show of dominance. Frantically from under the door a jagged blanket of ice shot out and climbed scared up the wall behind her. Her eyes followed it up as her pupils opened wide to take in the possible danger, but because she wasn't paying attention to the floor she lost her footing and slipped with the hot liquid flying from its container. She collapsed against the door in a frenzy and the tipped mug of searing chocolate splashed onto her collarbone and shoulder, in addition to parts of her face, enticing a painful holler as she could feel the burn digging its blood red talons into her flesh.

The door opened. Elizabeth's back fell to the ground upon a thicker blanket of ice and she felt someone drag her body by the collar towards the center of the room. The woman's fingers formed expressive curls just short of her boiling injuries around her neck area; it was like the burns were dancing upon her skin with feverish intent, wailing and lamming into one another to muster as much abuse as physically possible. She went to open her eyes but could not do it- the liquid had invaded there, too. Her retinas lit up with a bubbling howl.

Elizabeth could hear some whimpering in the room, although she wasn't entirely sure if the whimpering was not outside herself. A pair of cold hands covered the sensitive burns on her collarbone and cheek.

"I'm- I'm sorry! I'm so sorry," she heard the girl tremble. "P-please, just hold on!"

Elizabeth didn't understand why the room was so cold or why the floor felt like a lake that had frozen over, but she had no other choice than to let the girl press her shivering hands into her skin. At first the pain was startling as it was so fresh, but then a soothing force wrapped itself around her like a cowl. It traveled over every pore and stiffened every hair where it then seemed to lock in place and subdue the heat. After a minute, the hands left their posts and two thumbs pried her eyelids open. She winced at the temperature reactively; her vision was blurred and wrecked, but the vague outline of a small face with white hair was apparent despite her eyes being nothing more than glassy, bloodshot marbles.

"Keep still," the girl begged quietly, and she brought her lips together to blow a stream of cool, crystal air into one eye, followed by the other. The sensation was like a head rush one experiences after consuming a fistful of ice cream too hastily, but instead of a headache, this sensation brought about a healing antidote that seemed to be waging a heavily one-sided war behind her eyes. It overpowered the burns easily, her eyelids clamping shut as her hands soared upwards to come to the rescue. When the pain finally rested in peace and the dancing upon her skin stopped, she tried her luck at opening her eyes again. It was much less awful on the second attempt, although her vision still had some repairing to do, but the scene was clear for the most part. She blinked and squinted a few times before she could fully see the white-haired girl standing some feet away from her against the bed, her gloved hands hovering in front her chest almost defensively.

"I can see..." Elizabeth said, baffled. She made a sudden movement that included a shake of her head, which surprised the girl enough for her to send an airy blast to slam the door shut. It didn't lock, but that didn't matter since she threw up a strip of ice to seal the crease. Elizabeth went to stand, mindful of her increasing confusion, but as the floor was ice it took her longer than she was expecting to achieve something she normally took for granted.

"Elsa...!" she managed to yell, but Elsa cut her off.

"You can't tell!" the girl begged. She held fast to her own hands. "Please... _please_, you can't tell!"

There was nothing available to get a grip on, nothing to help hold her on stable footing. The ice was everywhere around her feet that she could see, and not only that, but it pervaded the bedroom, or rather what was left of the bedroom. Elizabeth stumbled and climbed as best she could to her feet to no avail, bringing herself back down to a safe kneeling position on the floor where she slowly spread her hands out in front of her. It was real; it was all real- the ice that kept her grounded, the snow piled high into mountainous peaks against the corners, the frosty chill that emitted a white puff with each taken breath, and the burns-

"The burns." Elizabeth looked at her chest, pulling the collar of her shirt to the side to see that the skin was healthy and pink. "You healed me?" she gaped, stroking the alleviated skin with disbelief. "You can do that?"

"I... I guess I can," she spoke gingerly, calculating the imperative spider's web they both were now tangled. The eldest princess of Arendelle held her ground as Elizabeth studied her from afar. She couldn't have been too much older than her sister, maybe a few years, making her around thirteen or fourteen to her sister's ten. There was a chaste sort of elegance about her that certainly highlighted her status as a princess, whereas her sister would have challenged a bull to a headbutting contest if given a quarter of the chance. However, a terror infected her blood and it determined her every move. Even despite being the only one of two people in the room with ice powers flexible enough to coax any army to slip on command, she was the one who remained the most frightened.

Lightning whipped from the sky across the only window picturing the outside, a grand triangular frame that almost reached the height of the wall, and Elsa flinched against it with her hands going up to cover her ears.

Another airy blast kicked Elizabeth across the ice until her back collided into the wooden legs of a dresser. Three icicles, as sharp as bayonets and thrice the size, swirled out from various places on the ceiling and angled directly at the woman's skull. She could hear Elsa's distraught cries, but her eyes would not part from the frozen blue lances just salivating at the tip to impale her.

"Okay, okay..." Elizabeth swallowed, her eyes fixated on the icicles that were eagerly stretching towards her head, like hunting hounds awaiting the kill command. "Just... r-relax. I won't tell anyone. I promise. Okay?" The icicles began to retract and melt back into the ceiling, giving Elizabeth the space to draw in a hefty breath. "Oh, _wow_..."

"No one can know," she heard Elsa say. "Not Anna, not anyone."

Elizabeth held up her hands, open and agreeable, as she swept her emerald eyes around the room. "I promise... I... This is..."

"Horrible," the girl finished, her face twisting into a grimace.

"_Amazing_," Elizabeth corrected. She gave up on walking ever again while in the company of the eldest princess of Arendelle, but she felt she could get used to sliding around with the grace of a newborn calf quite well. She slipped over to a pile of snow in the corner where she dug her hands into its belly. "How can you do this?" she asked, her excitement reaching a perpetual state. "_Why_ can you do this? When did it start?"

"I was born with it," Elsa replied, balancing against the foot board of her bed. "I don't know much else. And I'm sorry, but you have to go. It was my own fault for leaving my room, I knew I shouldn't have, I should have been _good_... but now you _have_ to go-" Elsa's breath hitched when a thunder clap rattled in their ears. A single fissure in the ice wedged from under the girl's feet and branched towards the governess.

"You're afraid of thunderstorms," the woman said, looking at the crack.

Elsa used a gloved hand to tear down the seal on the door. "I-It doesn't matter, now leave."

"It does matter," Elizabeth rose to her feet, using the wall nearest to her palm to keep steady. "What about them scares you?"

"They're... they're loud!" she finally said, exasperated. "They're loud and destructive, a-and the lightning..."

Elizabeth smiled knowingly: "When I was a child, I was scared of thunderstorms, too. I would hide under my bed whenever one came to our village, and I would stay under there from start to finish. One night, my grandmother said to me, 'Little one, why do you fear these storms?' And I said just what you said. She laughed at me: 'A thunderstorm can't help but be loud just as you can't help but be small, but it deserves to be here just as much as the rest of us.'" She saw that the white-haired girl was regarding her words with a selective interest. Elizabeth continued as she gradually skated closer. "By that she meant... nature is not inherently bad, or evil. It does not seek to hurt us, but we curse it all the same- because we fear it." The woman shrugged. "Of course, Granny also couldn't tell the difference between a pear and a porcupine, but for some reason I was never afraid of thunderstorms again after that."

Perhaps unbeknownst to even the girl herself, Elsa's lips were beginning to take on a relaxed curve. "I guess when you put it that way..."

Elizabeth reached the bed and planted her hands on the blanket. "Humanizing something really helps to change the perspective..."

_Monster! MONSTER! Get out of here! You are a filthy dog- an abomination- get OUT! GET OU-_

Elizabeth winced. "Just as de-humanizing something makes it easier to hate it."

Elsa's blue eyes softened against Elizabeth's wobbling stature. "You're very nice," she pointed out.

Elizabeth winked. "Actually, I'm a brute. It's just that after three weeks, your sister has completely wiped me out. I simply don't have the energy to be mean anymore."

"You are taking care of her, right?" Elsa asked at the mention of her little sister. She grew quieter. "She's alone a lot... She comes to my door sometimes, b-but I can't..."

"Yes," Elizabeth said easily, understanding. "She's happy. But she misses you. She speaks of you often."

The room seemed to be unraveling; the icicles dripped and pulled away as the snow melted seamlessly into the corners of the bedroom. The ice that padded the floor like a thick carpet thinned out until it dissolved somewhere under the floorboard. The room didn't go back to normal, but a film of white frost painted a solemn atmosphere of being out in the cold with absolutely nothing around for days.

Elsa wrapped her arms around herself and began to cry.

How long had it been since the girl last had contact with people- people that did not look at her hands, but her face? Anna had no idea of the circumstances and because of it blamed herself daily for her older sister's disappearance, but here the eldest princess was, choking up with guilt and turning blueish-white like snow basking under the moonlight. The suffering she weighed upon her pale shoulders like enormous sandbags were instead filled with the ice of her birth, and the freezing water she drowned in would harden into miles of glaciers above her every time she dreamt of the surface.

"Hey..." Elizabeth cooed, hoping to assuage the brewing snowstorm. "How about a bedtime story? To help you sleep."

She was surprised to see the girl gather her composure and actually consider it, nodding to the idea after a while. The woman hurried out of the room, minding the broken glass (she would have to clean that up later to reduce suspicion), and returned with a much less steamy mug of hot chocolate for the girl, as well as a dusty old book she found previously while rummaging through the family library.

"Have you ever heard of 'The Snow Queen'?" Elizabeth asked, noticing the small pink blotches dabbed around the young girl's eyes, as if having rubbed them furiously while the woman was absent from sight. Elsa thankfully accepted the proffered mug and shook her head. "What is it?" she inquired and Elizabeth claimed a stray chair from the wall.

"It's an old folktale about a demon mirror and a very powerful woman who ruled over the snow. Many people have this idea that the Snow Queen in the story is evil, but I never got that impression. She just seemed pretty lonely to me."

"You humanized her," Elsa deduced, which tempted a smile from the woman.

"Well, yes, I suppose I did. You catch on quickly."

Elizabeth respected the space between them, choosing to sit near the triangular window where she could keep an eye on the rain, and the distance seemed to soothe the girl into a peaceful recline against her pillow. Seeing Elsa calmed down was a relief to both her mind and body-– there was certainly no rush to be threatened by ceiling icicles ever again in her lifetime – and it dawned upon her the actual, genuine status of the eldest princess of Arendelle. If one could pick apart the layers of ice and royalty and prestige and all that stood between, she was just a girl; a girl who missed her sister dearly, a girl reluctantly next in line for the throne, a girl that wielded a magical anomaly unlike anything Elizabeth had ever seen, one that the world, unfortunately, was not ready to see, and she feared the outcome if it were to be discovered by the wrong sort of people. For the remainder of the night, there were no more surprises from Elsa's power, even with the storm interrupting from time to time. The frost subsided and the young girl slumbered against her bed, as she was tired long since before their meeting, and Elizabeth blew the candle from her nightstand with a quick burst before seeing herself out.

The woman kept well to her promise and hid Elsa's secret from Anna. She paraded through the endless games and heart-attacks when the youngest child went about her barrage of reckless endangerment, but in the cool summer evenings the attitude shifted dramatically when she visited the white-haired princess at nighttime. Elsa proved herself to be a proper heir to the Arendelle throne, already showing signs of regal authority in even overlooked tasks such as folding napkins or how she poised herself when she took a seat. The aftermath of nobility training no less, by means of environment and surely through the rough shove of social expectation that even Anna fumbled to carry. The amount of stress the girl must sustain for the good of the country, the good of the people, the safety of her sister- one would think she'd fear the world would shrink to the size of a pea and be crushed if she ever shirked on her duties. But for six nights from that night thereafter, six tranquil, quiescent nights of very few icicle mishaps, Elsa had company that did not recoil at the sight of her hands- a familiar feeling that she had almost misplaced- and stories to fasten to her pillow as she laid in rest. In the following days, Elizabeth acted as a wall between the two girls with every desire to exculpate both children from their self-inflicted crimes, to lift them into the sky where they could frolic undisturbed like they used to and build snowmen out of the clouds- but the closest she could ever maintain was upon her shoulders. Anna still enjoyed it, and Elizabeth, too, for the girl could not see her tears while she was so busy caressing the sun.

* * *

_Your Majesty,_

_During the course of my wonderful stay, I have compiled a small list of findings in regards to your youngest daughter, Anna. They are written here for you to study and consider at your own discretion, as requested. _

_I also have some things to say regarding your eldest daughter, Elsa. I will be brief._

"Sir?"

The king ignored his servant, not out of coarse manner, but instead out of shock and anxiety at seeing Elsa's name mentioned in the letter. His mind reeled- the governess met Elsa? What did she find out? Was Elsa's magic discovered? He slumped very slowly into the confines of his office chair, sweat dampening the spots where his fingers gripped the seemingly insignificant piece of paper, while the queen of Arendelle glanced on towards her husband's sudden change in demeanor. He continued to read, becoming increasingly concerned and visually agitated.

_First of all, your estate is lovely. And the staff, while few, were polite and courteous. However, I am troubled by something, and I cannot keep it a secret even as I write to you now. I disobeyed your original orders and met Elsa. At first, I didn't understand why you were so adamant about keeping me away from her, but then I realized it was not that at all. It was not a precaution that was placed to keep everyone out- it was a precaution to specifically keep her locked in._

* * *

Anna was the first to cry. Her blues eyes swelled up in an instant to aggress in hot streams, marring the once happy-go-lucky nature of her face. Elizabeth was startled as she had only asked the girl if she wanted chocolate sauce with her ice cream- and as the tears lolloped down her cheeks in unstoppable succession, the woman held her. They forgot about the ice cream and chocolate sauce, leaving the used spoons and bowls of melted ice cream on the table as they embraced each other tightly on the kitchen floor against some cabinets. And Elizabeth cried too, because she knew the truth of everything then. She knew how life would go on in the Arendelle castle for the two girls- Anna with her paintings that would only temporarily pacify her craving for companionship after being ripped from her sister's life, and Elsa with her anguish of being chained to her room after being ripped away from her own life, as well as her sister's. Elizabeth thought it ironic that she would become so acclimated to the warmth of summer after many years of avoiding it, just to have to leave again on somber terms. The strawberry-blonde girl with the expressive blue eyes demanded from the woman again and again to form an unbreakable promise, that she would go and see her brother and sister, because she knew they were thinking about her, she knew they loved her and missed her and wanted to see her. If she did not, the young girl threatened, then she would never speak to her again. Elizabeth, in the end, could not refuse such a proposition.

Elsa seemed to recognize what day it was, as she, too, was feeling (not to mention, physically) blue. The night before the woman's departure, they talked about mundane things, topics that didn't provoke or deny certain emotions- both in part to help Elsa relax, as well as personal conflictions about the final trickling moments of Elizabeth's stay. It took the whole week, but Elsa was comfortable enough to minimize the distance between them. She sat next to Elizabeth on the bed, hands overlapping one another on her thighs, and over time used the padding of the woman's shoulder as a headrest for her temple. As the girl dreamed, her powers went to work on a project that descended from the ceiling. It went at a crafter's pace, judicious and loving, with a considerate mind for spacing as it started out as a thin line and expanded closer to the end into a delicate sphere, like the shape of an oversized rain droplet hanging from the center of the girl's room. It was hollow so the moonlight could flood through it and paint shadows on the wall. The fragility of it made Elizabeth think she'd demolish the whole thing if she merely sneezed in its general direction, but she watched it meticulously carve into itself from the outside. Pieces of ice fell as they were discarded, and it didn't take long before the woman saw that the sphere was depicting images from Elsa's dream. There were stars that sprinkled the sky and the scene unfolded to imitate the outline of the Arendelle castle, exaggerated in its peaks, and the small houses of the city were drawn all around it like humble shrubs. There was snow on the ground with silhouettes of children building forts and having snowball fights in the fields. In the very center, the image of one girl adorning a single braid stood out in the open with her arms raised up. Snowflakes flew from her hands. Another image of a girl with two braids stood next to her, her arms raised in unison, and she was welcoming the snowflakes with open arms. All of the townspeople were.

* * *

_You came to me, afraid that your youngest daughter was falling into some sort of early stage of psychosis. I believe you have nothing to worry about in that matter, for now. However, if this seclusion keeps up- this forced separation, I am inclined to feel that something worse may happen in the future, especially to Elsa. I believe the fear that you inflict on her is fueling something much more painful than I'm sure you had initially anticipated. There will be a time when she will be discovered._

"My child..." the king quivered anxiously on his knees in front of his white-haired daughter as he held her by the shoulders and peered desperately into her frightened eyes. The ice project from the ceiling had fallen and shattered around their feet when her father suddenly came through the door and asked her such startling questions. "Does the governess know? Elizabeth? Does she know about what you are?"

Elsa nodded after a moment, confused, which made the king dip his head low for a breath of silent desperation. The frost from her skin creeped over his hands and he was forced to let her go, taking to his feet once again as the queen approached her husband from behind. The two parents looked to each other, neither one with a smile or a lick of hope.

Elsa gripped her own wrist, recoiling away from her parents as she crushed bits of her dream-catcher under her heels. "But she said she wouldn't tell! She promised me! It's my fault she knows, I left my room- she won't tell anyone, I swear!"

The king seemed to contemplate something very grimly. "No... you're right, Elsa, you're right," he said as he ran a gloved hand through his hair. The queen slowly took her hand away from him, knowing something, but unable to voice it. "She will not tell anyone."

The king left the room in a brisk hurry. The queen lingered within her daughter's room to scan the broken pieces of ice that littered the floor. She finally went to exit after her husband, but not before regarding her daughter with a pair of broken eyes which sent Elsa into a spiral of emotion as she tumbled backwards into the triangular window and fell to the floor against it. As the door locked, her forehead went to meet the top of her knees and she squeezed into the smallest ball she could physically muster. From the floor around her a wall of ice grew like sharp blue flowers, blossoming upwards.

_As I had said before, I should not question how one runs their own estate, but I do question many other things: what will happen when Elsa becomes queen? Is she to hide who she is for the rest of her life? How do you think that will work out? And what about Anna? Is she to forget she ever had a sister? Because I never once forgot about my siblings._

A special ferry was scheduled to pick Elizabeth up from the Arendelle docks that evening, and after the kind men who worked there helped the woman load up her bags, she shrugged deeper into her fur coat and stood at the back of the boat where she could see the distance traveled. She was not particularly fond of having to spend another three days held up on a boat with nothing but the rocking to and fro of the ocean, but she was too much lost in thought to whinge about it in excess.

_Perhaps I really know nothing and that's why I feel the way I do about the separation, but you must consider something for the sake of your family. Fear has consumed Elsa from head to toe, and I see it in you, too. I'm sure you think you are protecting them, but at what cost? _

Elizabeth was far enough out at sea to only see small specks of light flickering from the city of Arendelle, the sun setting behind it as if it were trying to devour the castle. Her mind wandered to thoughts of Anna floating from room to room, finding each one emptier than the last, and Elsa trapped by the terrors of the world, believing it would be better if she were tied to an iceburg somewhere and pushed from civilization. Elizabeth didn't want that future for them, and she certainly didn't want that future for herself. She was ready to face her family again, to see if they finally had a change of heart after years of her own separation from them, as if it was doing any good in the first place.

_I learned how to stop being afraid of thunderstorms long ago. And with all due respect, sir, can you do the same?_

Elizabeth noticed that she had stopped breathing properly. Very calmly she undid the fastens of her fur coat and looked inside, wrapping her hand around the front half of a bloody arrow that protruded from her chest. When she turned around, she spotted a man with a crossbow propped up and aimed down the sights some feet away from her at the other end of the boat. At first she didn't think about the arrow that was impaling her, only questioning why someone had brought a weapon onto a ferry boat and how they were able to smuggle it on. It was only a boat for transportation purposes- how strange. She put her hand on the railing and slipped gradually, smearing her blood on the metal and wood as she went down. When two men went for her body she was still alive, but unresponsive, as she was dragged onto a black tarp and wrapped like a gift for the hungry mouth of the sea, to which she was swallowed up and plundered into the digestive currents of the deep ocean.

_Sincerely, Elizabeth._

* * *

"I did the right thing, didn't I?"

The queen stayed at the window in her nightgown, her hair released from the day's tight bun as her brown hair hung in waves against her back. She leaned against it with her arms outstretched, her head balancing wearily against her shoulder. The king always knew that his wife was a strong woman of few words, and often he would look to her in times of need when the stress of being king was almost too much to bear, as she would do to him when the weight of being a queen got too close to crushing her. But now, she wouldn't even look at him.

The king approached her cautiously. "I did what I had to do- to keep Elsa safe- I had to do it," he repeated, more for himself, to hear the words being said by someone at all. He gently took his wife and turned her around, but she still refused to look at him. He clenched his teeth in frustration.

"You know that the world is capable of _monstrous_ things!" he exclaimed. "You know what would happen to her if anyone found out! You _know _this!" When the queen closed her eyes from him he fell to his knees and took fistfuls her nightgown in his quaking hands, burying his face into her stomach like he used to do while she was pregnant. He would spend hours listening to the sounds of growth, the sounds of their family coming together. "I did what I had to do to protect her..." he began to sob. The queen's lip trembled and she used the back of her hand to stifle it, staring painfully at the ceiling as the king crumbled into tears at her feet.

* * *

"She was really, really nice," Anna gushed. She parked herself against her sister's door, as she sometimes did, before Elsa would shoo her away from the other side. "We played lots of games and she was fun. She listened to me." The girl got up to her feet and turned to confront the door head on, as if Elsa were standing right there in front of her. "I wish you had played with us. I think you would have liked her, too."

Anna stared at the door for a long, hard while after there was no response from her sister. This angered her, but then it subsided and she only grew increasingly upset at the nothingness she was forced to face with each and every day. She was tired of talking to doors, and paintings, and pretending to make friends with the walls that never answered her questions, or hugged her, or asked her if she wanted chocolate sauce with her ice cream.

She wanted to build a snowman with Elsa.

"Elsa?" she called in, her voice shaking. "You know that it's okay with me if you like peaches, right?" She knocked on the door, wishing it would swing open and her sister would barrel into her. "Elsa?"

But the white-haired girl could not hear her, for she was engulfed by a shield of ice against the wall of her room, frozen in place as a snowstorm circled around her like a lioness protecting its cub.


End file.
